Does your company ask you to rate yourself against your goals...essentially asking you to write your own review?  Self-reflection is a wonderful tool, except when you have to write it down.  But being able to write your own performance review is a critical skill.  When companies ask employees to self-assess, they are looking for leaders.

Yes - a well written performance review shows leadership.  Why?  Because, in one place, your review clearly shows your ability to understand how your performance relates to the business.  What you write answers the question - do I understand how my job impacts the business or not?

Most people tend to do 1 of 2 things when writing their own reviews:

1. Be really, really hard on themselves

The group of people in this bucket are worried they will be perceived as egotistical.  To avoid this, these people are extremely hard on themselves.  Instead of saying they came close to meeting a goal, they will instead focus on how they missed the goal, the reasons why they missed and what they should have done differently.  It's like looking at a glass half-empty instead of half-full.  These people are honest to a fault. 

2. Be exceptionally brilliant and wonderful and terrific

I laughed.  Out loud.  When I read the article about how Trump re-wrote his own doctor's health assessment.  Of course, it is typical Trump-ism.  He claimed he was in "astonishingly excellent" health.  This is a great example of leaning too far in the other direction.  By writing things like "astonishingly excellent" or "extraordinary" physical strength, people raise their eyebrows.  This doesn't show leadership.  It shows someone who is out of touch with reality.  If your performance was astonishing, then that raises the question as to why?  Shouldn't we expect superior performance from you?  Why was it a surprise?

Your job is to write the review somewhere in between.

When comparing your results to your goals, write the review using the STAR technique:

1. S = Situation
Revisit the situation and what was involved regarding that goal.  Give brief context to the reader.

2. T = Task

Discuss your responsibility in this situation

3. A = Action

Describe the actions you took to meet those goals

4. R = Results

List the results.  Make sure you don't leave this section out.  This is critical.  Focus on the numbers or some qualitative measure (if quantitative is not possible) to describe the impact of your results.  Did you gain market share but you aren't sure how much?  That's ok, say so.  Did you receive positive feedback - say so.  Did you achieve revenue goals, or sunset a project within a specified timeframe or budget  - say so.

Now I will add one thing - your observations. 

When you discuss your results against those goals, make sure you indicate what impacted the results (up or down).  You can even indicate whether you are happy with the outcome or what you would like to do next year to improve upon these results.  Give credit to team members if appropriate too.

For example, if you came close to achieving a specific result, but not quite, you can say "Our results are within 5% of the target number."  Then add the reason you are close but not quite at target.  "Because of the downturn in the economy (or some other reason like a merger or acquisition) our results are actually closer than expected."  The important thing here is that you are showing WHY you did or did achieve (or exceed) results.  This is where you want to be detailed and explain what happened.  Do not too your own horn.  Stating what happen will do that for you.

If you aren't sure about what you have written, have someone review it before submitting it to your manager.

Be balanced in your review and focus on the results, and the reasons for them.  That will be a review worth reading.